Within their division, the Cubs will probably have a tougher fight against the Brewers and Cardinals than they did in 2017. Both teams improved significantly this offseason, but probably not enough to upend Chicago even before the addition of Darvish.

The touchdown rate will regress toward the mean, though, and Richardson might very well be built to excel within the never-ending plays and scrambling of the Russell Wilson universe.

Of his six touchdowns, four came after Wilson held onto the ball for four seconds or more.

Nobody else in the league had more than two such touchdowns, and that was only true for four other receivers.

Injuries are also a concern, given that Richardson’s left knee has been through a torn MCL and two torn ACLs.

In a market in which teams seem desperate to overpay midtier wide receivers, though, Washington is giving the 25-year-old Richardson a five-year, $40 million deal with $20 million in guarantees.

Instead, the Mariners will go forward with what they have. The starters will be backed by a bullpen that now features Juan Nicasio and a full season of David Phelps, which should help. The formula had better work. Because of the tumbleweeds on the farm, it will be extremely difficult for Dipoto to make a meaningful upgrade should the Mariners find themselves in relative contention near the trade deadline. Even reaching that point may be a tall order, given the overwhelming strength of the Astros and the fancy new toys of the Angels.

If the Mariners don’t contend this season, Seattle may be looking at a long rebuild. Cano is coming off his worst offensive season by OPS+ since 2008. Hernandez’s performance is declining, and all the mileage on his body may be showing. Neither one is getting any younger. Nelson Cruz is in the final year of his contract. The only meaningful help on the way may be in the form of Kyle Lewis, who has lost time to a bad knee injury and has yet to play above A-ball. If the Mariners are in the middle of the pack come July, they’ll be at a crossroads.

QB Drew Brees, Saints Grade: B There was never any realistic likelihood of Brees leaving the Saints, given that the 39-year-old and his family have been settled in Louisiana for more than a decade, and he finally got some defensive help last season.

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The Bears have re-signed punter Pat O’Donnell to a one-year deal, tweets Adam Schefter of ESPN.com. The pact is worth $1.5M, per Mike Garafolo of NFL.com (Twitter link).

New England, meanwhile, now?needs a healthy Julian Edelman in 2018 more than ever.

The move:?Former Minnesota Vikings QB Sam Bradford is expected to sign a one-year deal worth $20 million with $15 million guaranteed.?

Analysis:?Arizona is likely going to need a fallback plan, as Bradford played in just two games last year with a knee ailment that coach Mike Zimmer described to NFL Network as “degenerative.” If he is healthy, he could be a serviceable bridge starter. But general manager Steve Keim and first-year coach Steve Wilks need to invest in a young quarterback via the draft.

Former Seattle Seahawks?WR Paul Richardson agrees to a five-year, $40 million deal with the Redskins, per multiple reports.

Taylor, 28, spent the past three seasons with the Bills and was named to the Pro Bowl in 2015. He completed 62.6 percent of his passes and threw for 2,799 yards last season with 14 touchdowns and four interceptions. He was briefly benched in favor of rookie Nathan Peterman before returning to the starting lineup as Buffalo clinched a playoff berth.

“What he did in Buffalo by leading them to the playoffs says a lot,” Jackson said. “This guy walks in the building having more wins than a lot of people in this building. So hopefully a lot of that goodwill will rub off on this organization.”

Clearly the Rams were focused on their defensive backfield this offseason. 4) Philadelphia Eagles Philly clearly prioritized upgrading their defense this offseason. The Eagles made one of the biggest trades of the offseason when they landed Michael Bennett from the Seattle Seahawks for a fifth-round pick and a wide receiver most people have never heard of. The defending Super Bowl champs already had one of the best defensive lines in football, so adding Bennett will make them that more dangerous. Speaking of the defensive line, they also signed Haloti Ngata to a one-year deal.

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New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson passed away ?on Thursday at the age of 90. He passed away peacefully Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans with his wife Gayle Marie Benson at his side. Mr. Benson was hospitalized with the flu Feb. 16.

The National Football League, its teams and players expressed condolences over Benson’s death:

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell:

The Philadelphia Eagles are adding another defensive lineman to the stockpile. Haloti Ngata signed a one-year deal with the Super Bowl champs.

NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported the former All-Pro visited with the Eagles on Thursday.

Trump had said at the outset of his administration that he wanted to improve the disastrous U.S. relationship with Russia that he inherited from the Obama administration, a foreign policy goal that could help the United States achieve its own objectives in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Russia’s role in the election quickly overshadowed the relationship. Trump claims there was never any collusion between Moscow and his campaign, but critics say his anger over what he has called a “witch hunt” has colored the administration’s larger approach to Russia.

Max Bergmann, a former Obama administration official who heads the investigative Moscow Project at the Center for American Progress, called Thursday’s sanctions “a baby step” that does not suggest the administration intends to use much of the authority it has to go after Russian interference.

But he landed in the same defensive scheme as that of the Seahawks, still got well compensated at $13 million per season coming off a ruptured Achilles in his age-30 season and gets to exact revenge on Seattle while playing for its rival down the coast. That’s a win.

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I will say that I do have some concerns about injury risk with Vea because of how he plays right now, hip tossing 300-plus-pound men is bound to take a toll on you at some point. How will it affect Vea’s play if he can’t rely on his power to be successful?

The honest answer is nobody knows.

What I do know is right now, today, Vea looks like a damn monster on tape manhandling dudes who don’t appear to be used to getting manhandled. Unless something showed up in his medical evaluations, I’m pretty sure I would take a chance on his body holding up. Suh still hasn’t broken down and he still plays just as violently as ever, after all.

Vita Vea may have only been a name to me a few days ago, but now, after watching his film, I have to say he is the second-most physically dominant interior defensive lineman I have ever broken down, behind Aaron Donald. I watched four games of Vea kicking ass and taking names and I didn’t need to see another down to make that assessment. If a team needs an interior defensive lineman this year I don’t think they could do better than Vea and I haven’t even watched any other interior defensive linemen yet.

I just can’t imagine seeing anybody better this draft season.

Since I don’t have access to all-22 for college football games, I use the next best thing for my draft profiles and go to Draft Breakdown where they post the TV copy of a bunch of top prospects’ games already cut up and ready to go. For the purposes of this breakdown I watched Vita Vea play against UCLA, Oregon, Stanford, and Washington State Those represented the eighth, ninth, 10th, and 12th games on Washington’s schedule last season, respectively.

Grade: C In a two-day span in which fortune has smiled on midtier wideouts, Grant was no exception.

The Tulane product was always one of Jay Gruden’s favorites during his time in Washington, but it was also telling that the organization signed Terrelle Pryor to a one-year deal last year in lieu of promoting Grant into the starting lineup.

When Pryor bombed out, Grant assumed a larger role and posted a 45-573-4 line.

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“His energy is radiant,” Abreu said. “He has filled us with the confidence to go out and play the game the way the way it is supposed to be played.”

Hahn, too, speaks glowingly about his manager, and when Renteria talks about what he has valued in the rebuild, it is easy to see why.

This is a stacked team, and Cousins locks in the Vikings as one of the three favorites to come out of the NFC.

The only downside is that the Cousins deal might not allow them to keep everyone from that team around.

The Vikings have a bevy of budding young stars entering the final years of their respective deals, with Anthony Barr, Stefon Diggs, Danielle Hunter and Eric Kendricks all in line to become free agents at the end of the 2019 season.

Cousins almost surely left money on the table, but the structure of this deal doesn’t allow the Vikings to be flexible and push some of the cap hits into the future, when the cap will be higher and Cousins would likely be negotiating his next deal.

At the end of June 2016, Maples was demoted from High-A Myrtle Beach to South Bend in the Midwest League. That was his fourth season in the minors, and thanks to persistent command issues it was beginning to look like he’d mire there forever. But just over a year later, Maples had risen through three levels of the Cubs’ minor league system and was summoned to Chicago with 40-man roster expansion in September. He pitched sparingly, showing in his six appearances both what could make him great and what could sink him quickly.

The fiercest competition will come from the Dodgers and Nationals, but neither team can quite match Chicago’s newly constructed rotation. Even before its latest addition, the Cubs’ staff was comfortably in the top half in baseball. Though a top three of Clayton Kershaw, Rich Hill and Alex Wood in Los Angeles, and Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Gio Gonzalez in Washington presents formidable opposition, adding Darvish makes the Cubs the team best equipped to win in 2018 especially in the playoffs.

Across the months of the regular season, perhaps having Darvish ups the Cubs’ win total by just a handful of games, but he will also help in a couple of ways that Chicago sorely needs: bullpen usage and walk rate.

The Browns will inherit a one-year deal for Taylor that includes a $10 million base salary ($1 million of which is fully guaranteed) and a $6 million roster bonus due March 16.

The fit here is a little curious, if only because Landry is a slot receiver and the Browns actually had a few options to operate there in 2018. Duke Johnson has quietly become an effective weapon as both a runner and receiver, posting a positive DVOA in both categories last season. The 24-year-old might very well have served as a regular slot receiver for the Browns next season if they hadn’t traded for Landry. With Johnson entering the final year of his rookie deal, it seems possible that Cleveland might not keep the Miami product around after this season.

“We’ll take phone calls up to the last minute,” Ballard said, according to the Colts’ official website. “We’ll be prepared to know the spots in the draft that we need to move back (to) and who the players (are) we are able to take and acquire if we do move back.”

The list of teams that could be wanting to move up to No. 3 include any team that is in the market for a new franchise quarterback. We’ll know more about those teams after the Kirk Cousins sweepstakes is settled and the process of free agency ends with quarterbacks like Case Keenum, Sam Bradford, and Teddy Bridgewater getting signed, but for now, teams like the Broncos (who own the fifth pick) and the Jets (who own the sixth pick) could be in play if they miss out on their free agent targets and fall in love with a prospect.

A trade with the Broncos or Jets wouldn’t involve moving back too far in the draft order while trading with another quarterback-desperate team like the Bills or Cardinals would involve moving back to the mid-to-late portions of the first round.? Just a year ago, the 49ers traded back from No. 2 to No. 3 and still got the player they wanted (defensive end Solomon Thomas ) in addition to the Bears ‘ bundle of draft picks.?

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All 30 MLB teams honored the victims of the recent school shooting in Parkland, Fla., by donning caps bearing the “SD” logo of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s baseball team.

The 20-year-old Welker, considered the No. 8 third base prospect in baseball by MLB.com, said he couldn’t believe the news when someone texted him. His family, which still lives nearby, has been keeping him up to date on events.

“The town is quiet, my mom told me. People are still affected by it,” Welker said. “It will get back to normal soon, hopefully.”

Other alumni of the suburban Miami high school in spring training are Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo and Athletics minor league pitcher Jesus Luzardo.

Among the nicest tributes to shooting victims and survivors Friday in spring training, the Miami Marlins invited members of Stoneman Douglas High School’s baseball and softball teams to camp.

The reigning AL Rookie of the Year and newly acquired Giancarlo Stanton will likely split time at DH and a corner outfield spot once the season begins.

The next wave of precipitation rolled in around noon, as Ohtani was doing sprints in the outfield of Field No. 1, and by the time everyone moved to the batting cage on Field No. 2 we’d moved from light sprinkles to actual rain. Not heavy, but annoying. Not that anyone aside from media members trying to keep their equipment dry seemed to mind.

Ohtani’s batting practice, his first with the Angels, was a big damn deal. Angels GM Billy Eppler was there, and he had a hard time wiping the grin off his face. Manager Mike Scioscia was planted firmly with his arms on the back of the cage, and he spent most of BP smiling, too. Hideki Kuriyama, who was Ohtani’s manager with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in Japan, watched from near the backstop (his Fighters are finishing up a spring training trip of their own, up the road in Scottsdale). The list of important, happy people went on and on.

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Right-hander Brent Honeywell won’t be making his major-league debut any time soon.

The Rays prospect underwent successful Tommy John surgery and will be out the entire 2018 season.

Ramos suddenly becomes arguably the best backup catcher in the league. He can mash the ball and should be a fun bat off the bench if the manager doesn’t mind pinch-hitting with his second backstop. Arroyo can theoretically play a bit of shortstop, as well as back up at second and third. Ideally, he’d be getting everyday plate appearances somewhere, but, well, desperate times and all that. Dietrich can be a bit of a super-sub at all four corner spots. Smith provides blistering speed off the bench, and the ability to play all three outfield positions. He’s an excellent pinch-runner or late-inning defensive replacement. And sure, he can make a lot of contact, but just don’t expect him to do much with it, as he has almost no power whatsoever.

“I think it’s the understanding of when … the training staff lets me go and it’s time to play, you only want to come off the DL once,” Murphy told reporters Tuesday, via ESPN. “I don’t want to start playing games and then have to stop.”

Murphy — who batted .322 in 2017, good for second in the National League — underwent debridement and microfracture surgery on his right knee in mid-October and has been rehabbing since. He has yet to run at full speed and is currently not allowed to swing a bat.

New Washington manager Dave Martinez is not looking to hinder his star second baseman’s progress by putting him the lineup too early.

“I’m more concerned about rushing him and him not being fully ready,” Martinez said. “When we get him back, we don’t want him to go back on the DL, we want to get him back for the whole season.”

Murphy, 32, would not commit to being ready on opening day, but he is satisfied with his progress.

They followed that pick with Randy Gregory in the second round in 2015 and Taco Charlton in the first round in 2017.

The Cowboys also signed free agents like Greg Hardy and Jeremy Mincey to add to the pass rush.

The book is still out on Charlton, but even after Lawrence’s emergence, the Cowboys finished 15th in the NFL in sacks and will need to continue to search for more help on the defensive line.

And he’s not alone. The 25-year-old Franco is entering his third full season in the majors, and despite a significant drop-off on offense from 2016 to 2017, his struggles last year were largely caused by flailing at sliders during the first two months of the season. Franco’s bat stayed rather cold until late May, and then things gradually improved — though he still finished the season hitting just .186 against the slider and whiffing at the pitch nearly 20 percent of the time. Franco has some work to do there, but despite his other shortcomings at the plate he still hit 24 home runs in 2017 and upped his walk rate while dropping his strikeout rate from the previous year.

Landry has racked up receptions at a ridiculous rate, but the rest of his numbers leave a bit to be desired.

According to Pro Football Focus , Landry played out of the slot on 64.8 percent of his routes in 2017 — down from 72.7 percent in the season prior. That’s why, despite the fact that he led the league in receptions, he was 17th in receiving yards with 987. He has, for the majority of his career, racked up receptions underneath for short gains.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Golden Tate played in the slot at an even higher rate than Landry and not many are complaining about his contributions with the Detroit Lions . But Tate has a contract that averages to $6.2 million per year.

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No one knows anything for sure about who was taken first in the inaugural NBA All-Star draft, but based on Russell Westbrook’s reaction, one person thinks the reigning MVP is “crazy.”

Westbrook thought he had been selected in the last spot on Thursday when he saw the list released on Uninterrupted’s Twitter account. He then went out and scored a season-high 46 points in the Thunder’s win over the Wizards.

The Stars, currently in the first wild card spot, lost for the second time in as many nights after falling in overtime Monday night.

“We’ve just going to have to move forward,” Klingberg said. “We can’t be frustrated. We’re still right in the mix there. We’ve still got the wild card spot. We’re just going to have to move on and find a way to score more goals.”

Kari Lehtonen made 32 saves for Dallas.

Mike Fisher was in the starting lineup for his first game back in Nashville since being signed on Feb. 26. He received an ovation 10 seconds into the game during a stoppage in play while a catfish was removed from the ice. Fisher went to the box for hooking less than 2 minutes into the game.

Chalk this one up to another weird injury report.

The Celtics announced Friday, Marcus Smart will be out two weeks due to lacerations he sustained on his hand from a non-basketball injury.

This in and of itself is not weird, but when Smart apologized to fans for hurting himself, that is when things got bizarre.